In blows hope

It's another lazy Sunday for me -- generally my favorite kind. But my Sundays are also tinged with guilt, because by Sunday afternoon I always feel like a loser for not accomplishing what I wanted to for the weekend. Usually household chores. We already spoke about my love for those.

So I awoke from my Sunday afternoon nap, stretched, and let the guilt set in. Then I noticed something -- the curtains were all blowing crazy-like in my kitchen and living room -- in front of the windows I'd opened... wait... I vaguely remember something about a cold front... on Sunday... wait, it's Sunday ... sqeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeee! I jumped up and pranced through the kitchen to my back patio, and stepped outside into the glorious wind. Then promptly got hit in the face with my hanging chair that was blowing every which way, but I didn't even care. I did a Titanic Dipu and thrilled in the cool breeze, watching the trees sway and listening to the [broken] windchimes [not] chime ... three sets of feline eyes watched cautiously from the kitchen table, as their usually sluggish FoodSource was OUTSIDE, and this was a sight to behold. They were afraid. Very afraid.

I stood out there, arms outstretched, until I got cold. Which was probably under a minute, in fact I'm sure of it. But in that precious 60 seconds, I felt a tiny sprig of joy and hope spring up in my heart. Like it does every fall, at the first real cold front. I love cold weather, people, and no I don't fully understand why i'm still in Texas but that's another topic. The cool weather brings with it my happiest memories, of playing in the snow in Kansas; sledding down Snake Hill (and into a pile of rocks -- again, another post); high school football games snuggled up next to my HS sweetheart; making out down at the rec center wearing his jacket; summers in Colorado at Spring Canyon (ok, that's not officially fall, but the cool weather still counts); and on and on and on. The annual Thanksgiving Parade in Comfort, snuggled under a blanket on my sister's MIL's front porch, holding the youngest nephew in my lap. Breaking out the sweaters. The cool weather brings me to my happy place, I suppose you could say. While the hot weather that exists the other 10 months of the year here sucks it all out of me. Another post.

I stepped back inside, hair wild, eyes bright, toes cold, and confronted my feline audience:

Good times are on the way, my kitties. I think I'll give you canned catfood for dinner in celebration of fall.

And they rejoiced.

Here I sit now, typing a blog, upright for the longest period so far today, planning out how i'm now going to go clean the kitchen and perhaps even do laundry. Or...vacuum. The possibilities. They are endless. I must seize this hopeful burst of energy before it warms back up to 90 later this week.

...and good times were had by all.

A lesson for young girls; or, the jade-ification of a divorcee

One of the first things my mother taught me about boys was this:

If you ignore a boy, he’ll like you.

I am 35 years old, divorced for 8 years, and childless. Obviously I’ve done something “wrong", but it wasn’t until recently that I realized what it was. If I had just followed the simple guidelines laid out for me when I was 7, who knows where I’d be now—or with whom.

As a young girl, I thought my mother was insane. I found it impossible to ignore a boy I really liked. This was counter intuitive – why on EARTH would I want the boy to think I Didn’t like him when I DID?? If I wanted nothing more than for him to pay attention to me, shouldn’t I then strive to capture his attention? Doesn’t it make sense that I should let him know how I feel, so the pressure is off him and he can adore me out in the open?

WRONG.

I can safely say now, that after much, MUCH, trial and error, that is not the case. NEVER admit you like a boy until he has already put it all out there and proven himself vulnerable and smitten. You will not get what you want by throwing yourself at him, by being so obviously available. You must act aloof. You must get up afterwards and go home. You must not always answer the phone when he calls. I hate to say this, but you must “fib” sometimes about what your plans are. He mustn’t know you will clear your calendar at the mere suggestion of the possibility of seeing you “later”.

If he does make this empty promise, then, for the love of God, don’t try and pin him down. If he says, “maybe I’ll see you later” do NOT, under any circumstances, ask, “when?” If you try and pin him down, the boy will not call. If you say “whatever” and go about your business, 9 times out of 10 he will. And when you get this call, act blasé. Do not act excited, or under any circumstances, relieved. Oh, and DO NOT CALL HIM if you don’t hear from him. And to carry this a step further: if you don’t hear from him, resist the almost unbearable urge to email him the next morning and casually ask why he didn’t call. This is a complete turnoff to boys. Boys are, I’ve found, counter intuitive.

If you do get a reply to an email you should not have sent, do NOT reply to his reply unless he has left it open ended. If the email goes like this:

I was out late last night and really tired when I got home.

Don’t reply. However, if the email goes like this:

I was out late last night and really tired when I got home. How was your evening?

Then reply, but be equally vague. Resist the urge to detail your entire evening in several paragraphs of scintillating, witty prose, hoping he will read your words and realize just how precious and funny and perfect-for-him you are. Just don’t do it.

Let me back up right here and state the obvious: Yes, this is stupid. It is stupid that boys are wired so backwards that they respond to these little reindeer games. But in my VAST experience, it is true. The more you act like you don’t want him, the more he will want you. Just trust me on this one.

And why should you trust me, you wonder? After all, I’m divorced. And single. Yes, true. But. I have honed this art during my 5-year involvement with a certain BT, and practice makes perfect. So if the “right” guy ever comes along? I’m so set.

Um, yeah. I’ll keep you posted.


p.s. while my mother was right about this one, the sticks and stones one? NOT TRUE. But that's a whole other post...

House cons

I would say that at best, I'm a reluctant homeowner. By that I mean that yes, I "own" a home, and I know how fortunate I am to have accomplished this. I also enjoy the tax break I get every year, as well as the "no pet deposit" part. But so many other things about it? Annoying.

For example, maintenance. I H.A.T.E. having to deal with things when they break. Usually, in fact, unless there's water spewing everywhere a la Storyteller, I just don't deal with it until there IS water spewing everywhere. This drives my father insane. He doesn't understand why my garage door has been broken for more than a year now. And I'm like, it works if I press it down real hard, with continuous pressure, and recite The Lord's Prayer backwards in Arabic, so like, why would I bother to take off work and PAY someone to come fix it when it WORKS? Sheesh. So what if it only closes from inside the garage, so after backing out I have to run inside, close it, and come out the front door? This perplexes my dad even further because BY GOD, WHAT IF SOMEONE STOLE MY CAR in the two seconds it takes me to go around and come back out??? (my general response: Dad, I don't live in S.A. Things are different here…).

I also H.A.T.E. maintaining my lawn. I know I've moaned about that on here before, and I do pay someone to take care of it, but I still have to orchestrate THAT. And the really annoying thing about it is that I personally don't care b/c I don't go outside. But if I let it go at all, my HOA starts leaving me nasty notes and threatening to have their OWN PEOPLE come do my lawn and charging me for it. I'm like, is that actually your idea of a threat?? Bring it on! That works for me! Right now I'm trying to ignore a flier my lawn guy left on my doorknob this weekend that says, "Call me, Lisa". I can't ignore it forever, b/c he used my name and all. I wasn't even sure he KNEW my name. Well, I guess I do sign the checks I leave for him under the doormat. (yes, Dad, I leave a CHECK under the DOORMAT :O). I'm sure he wants me to call him so he can berate me again for never watering (it's WINTER, it's turning to straw anyway, geez) or to inquire again about when I'll let him fill the empty tree pit in my backyard. And people, there is just never a good time to fork over several hundred dollars to have a HOLE filled, am I right? Coming up is the holidays, which means presents and plane tickets; there's my recent shoe spree; and gosh, I'd rather pay to have the garage door fixed than fill a HOLE in my backyard. I mean, REALLY.

These are reasons I have seriously considered moving back into an apartment when I sell the house. Besides the flexibility and location advantages, I would no longer have to think about the yard or even a backed-up drain. NOT MY PROBLEM! Disadvantages: pet deposits; no tax break; noise. I do like being separate from my neighbors so I rarely, if ever, hear signs of life on either side of my house.

This is a home maintenance rant, I suppose. In which case, I guess I'm finished. Mainly I was just putting off the call to my lawn guy for a few more minutes… thanks for that.

The Boyz

At last, pics from my weekend in Denver! Behold the nephews...


#2


#2


#1


#1


#3

I know. MUFFINS. All of them. Cuteness runs in the family, y'know.

Ick update

More than halfway through the workday and still holding steady at feeling like minimal shit. In other words, it could be a LOT worse, granted I'd still rather be in bed right now. Here is what has transpired since my last entry:

1. Slept sitting up til 6am.
2. Awoke with a massive, throbbing headache.
3. Self medicated and slept til 8am. Sitting up. Surrounded by cat.
4. Took another dose of Zicam.
5. Got to work almost on time.
6. Workworkwork.
7. Another dose of Zicam.
8. Ingested "Airborne", this mega mixture of vitamins and amino acids designed to kick a cold in the ass.
9. Vegetated and pondered the mega vitamin I just ingested. Imagined I could feel the cold getting its ass kicked.
10. Blogged about it.

Any sympathy you want to send my way is still much appreciated.

I dreamed disturbing dreams last night, including my recurring college dream: the one where I am here and now in my life, but am hiding a secret that I never **quite** finished college, that I need to go back and finish one more class to get my degree. This stress dream entails having to quit my job and go back to school for a semester, including trying to find a cheap apt. to hold all the crap and kitties I've accumulated since I was in college, for no money, since I'm no longer working. On especially special occasions, like while on cold meds, I even throw in a couple of old roommates to complete the nightmare.

I can't wait to get home and nap; perhaps that crappy history prof will make an appearance...oh, goody!

Return to the Sea of Ick

Warning: I am medicated and this might be ever so slightly incoherent. You have been warned.

I mentioned this morning that I had the beginnings of a cold. Well once the high from my chicken biscuit wore off, by lunchtime my head was starting to feel really cloudy. Finally I surrendered and made a pharmacy run to stock up on cold remedies. Um, yeah. I spent almost $30. Overkill, anyone? But at least I felt i was fighting the cold and not just succumbing to the misery... and I really think the Zicam stuff (which claims to cut your cold time in half) cleared up my brain so I could actually function for the full work day.

But. By the time I got home this evening I could no longer hold it together, so i crawled into bed and slept for a couple of hours. I hate how having a cold, or any kind of upper respiratory condition, screws with your sleep. Because people? I am a notoriously GOOD sleeper. I can sleep anytime, anywhere. But tonight I slept from 8:30 - 10:30, then got up and forced myself to take a shower -- which helps, but only temporarily. Now I've been back in bed for over an hour and I'm wide awake. DAMMIT.

So instead of using this time to do something productive, i'm instead writing my third blog entry of the day. i guess you could say that being sick makes me more open to "sharing"? Maybe? My working theory is that because I live alone and have no one to complain to about being sick, I have turned to you, the Internet. Bring on the sympathy! Let me wallow in it! And maybe the effort of wallowing will make me sleepy again and I'll be able to sleep despite the fact that no air is passing through my nose at this time and my ribs hurt from coughing.... good times.

Bring it.

On hope

I sent my friend Matt this link. His reply:

It's only a matter of time before they finds the precioussssss.....

Happiness

So I have a cold. I started sniffling yesterday, and by late last night, as I finished up some work, I was sneezing my head off and talking with a croak. Sleep helped marginally. However? Happiness is Chick fil a in the morning. Seriously. Stopping to pick up a chicken biscuit and mini tots added 4 minutes to my commute and probably hours to my producitivity.

That is all.

If only all joys in life were this simple...

Things to do in Denver….

… with three boys under the age of 6.

Well, you can

1. Go to the park.
2. Go to another park.
3. Drive the scenic route into mountains.
4. Eat at mountain restaurant with creek view.
5. Hike in mountains, wrangling bebes.
6. Watch cheesy DVDs (including, but not limited to, Xanadu).
7. Shop (sans bebes).
8. Eat, eat, eat.
9. Float in giant bathtub.
10. Snuggle with bebes.
11. Nap.
12. Bond with bebes.
13. Nap.
14. Eat.
15. Chill and pray for snow.
16. Miss the snow by mere HOURS.

I'm baaaack! I am tired, but not in a debilitating way. The weather was gorgeous this weekend, but it seems I just missed the first snow of the season!! Ack! I'm so sad about that… we were hoping it would happen sooner so my flight would get, you know, postponed…

And despite a frantic call from my pet sitter Sat. night informing me that she'd found [something gross] and didn't know from which cat it came, I still had a great time. Despite thinking all the way home on the plane, through turbulence and darkness, that I'd have to take all three cats (that's 50 lbs. of feline, my friends) to the emergency vet at midnight, I still enjoyed every moment of my vacation.

(Luckily, when I arrived home, bedraggled and grumpy at 11pm last night, all three cats met me at the door in high spirits, not one of them acting the least bit sickly. Much to my relief. I saw them all eat and drink and jump and no one seemed uncomfortable, so I'm going to chalk it up to weirdness and just keep my eyes on them for a couple days…so far so good…)

(let me emphasize, though, that I was WILLING to take them to the emergency vet at midnight if the situation warranted such measures. If any of them had so much as yeowled when I squeezed them from head to tail I would have packed them up in a heartbeat – but I swear, they all seemed just fine… I'm a good mom, really!!)

So. I'm back at work today and it feels like I was gone a lot longer than three days. That's good, right? I think so. A little perspective always helps. A little detachment. Today I'm playing catch up.

That is all for now, but I will post adorable nephew pics very soon…

And publicly, I want to
THANK YOU SISTAH!!!!!

a scaly solution...

and I don't mean the kind that you step on first thing in the a.m. naked, after peeing, sucking in your stomach even though you know, intellectually, that it won't help, only to be once again devastated... no, i'm talking about scaly skin. My sister just emailed me to bring lots-o-lotion to CO this weekend b/c she was getting "scaly"; and for some reason my mind veered off down this weird path...like that NEVER happens.

So I was thinking, hmm, Nicole has a hot tub; what if there were a way to drain it and fill it up with lotion for the winter? warm lotion, at that? then you could just dip yourself in a couple times a day and ensure total coverage, much faster than rubbing it in inch by inch! Isn't that a great idea? Or, they could have an "anti-scale spray" service, much like the spray tans -- you strip down at a spa and they hose you down with lotion that coats you everywhere and leaves you with a nice glowy sheen....

Next thought was, wouldn't it feel nice, actually, to sit in a hot tub-o-warm lotion? Maybe I'm on to something here... THEN (and you can stop now if it's just too much) I remembered this bath jelly I saw once, and started fantasizing about that...

mmm-yeah. that is all.

hump day

This week is moving along so quickly! (now, when's the last time you heard me say THAT??) I'm glad, because tomorrow evening I'm finally flying to Denver to visit my sistah and les bebes! I'm excited. I need a break. And I haven't seen them since July. That's CRAZY talk! I hope Cooper remembers me... the other two will, but he's so young... The good news is, I'll see them again at Thanksgiving and probably at Christmas too. Woo-hoo! Anyway... that's probably why I'm freaking out that it's already Wednesday.

Not much going on, other than work and more work. Last week I had social/work engagements almost every night, and this week is the opposite, which is fine with me. Sometimes I just need "me" time and it wears me out going out on school nights. (I know, I know. sad.)

Sadder still is that I can't think of one witty thing to write about at the moment. I just wanted to pop in and say "I'm alive" and if something interesting unfolds today, I'll be sure to write a scintillating blog just for your amusement. :)

It's okay to dream

I want to comment on a dream I had this afternoon. Yes, afternoon. When i was supposed to be working. Anyway.

I was having the best dream evah about being at a wedding (or something) and there was this huge-ass buffet. So I kept getting in line and getting behind really slow people, so I kept jumping around from line to line and finally I found myself in front of the desserts. At first I felt guilty because I hadn't yet put any "real food" on my plate. But as I continued through the line, the desserts kept getting better and better, and it wasn't long before I blew off "real food" completely and was loading up on desserts. And OMG. It was AWESOME. My favorite things were the huge, pie-sized OATMEAL CREAM PIES - like the Little Debbie ones, only HUGE and homemade. HOMEMADE. I'm not sure what it means that every time I tried to reach for one someone else would take it. Hmm. Anyway, that's okay because my sleeping brain kept inventing more and more delightful concoctions so everywhere I went in this mythical buffet there were increasingly more awesome and plentiful desserts (now that I think about it, there never was any "real food" to speak of.) There were all sorts of gooey cakes and non-fruit pies; large, flat, chewy cookies with no nuts; vats of creamy pudding; ice cream with yummy candy swirled in; and lots of different types of neon-colored sodas, not anything that actually exists, but all made up in my fevered brain. It was like... Willy Wonka's factory on a buffet. On crack. Yeah, that's exactly what it was like!

I woke up suddenly, hot and thirsty, and immediately went for the freezer and the last Skinny Cow ice cream sandwich I had in the house.

it's sad. you don't need to say it. i already know.

iTunes flashback

Hot Kansas summers. Three months of childhood decadence, running around the neighborhood in terrycloth shorts, playing so hard the days fly by in what feels like moments. Waiting for the ice cream truck to make it's afternoon pilgrimage down Pick Avenue; at the first ding of the bell, running inside to wake up mom for ice cream money, trying hard not to wake up little brother while slamming the screen door. After dinner, back outside where all the courtyard kids reconvene for an exhilarating and complex game of hide and seek. In the dusky moonlight, fireflies light up like nature's magic candles, and weeping willows make brilliant hiding places. Sometimes it felt like hours you were huddled under the low branches, heart pounding, waiting to be discovered. Anticipation turning to worry when you were not discovered, fearing you had been forgotten and the other kids had moved on to another game. A fear you still have, actually…

- "More Than a Woman", Bee Gees, circa 1977

Butterflies

This is something I wrote a few years ago, before I had a blog. I stumbled upon it tonight and thought how weird that I don't remember answering my own recent questions...


By Sunday evening it had become painfully clear to her that her weekend had not been one spent in blessed solitude, cherishing her freedom, relaxing in her cozy home with her devoted cats. Oh no, let’s call it what it was. A weekend spent waiting. Waiting for his phone call. Or even an email. Waiting for him to stop by. Since Friday, she had been tacitly expecting… something. She was bathed, shaved, and pretty. Trying to Zen-out so she wouldn’t obsess about why the hell he hadn’t called her at all this past week. Drinking a little bit, laughing a lot. Trying not to wonder why the only contact she had had from him in over a week was one benign instant message asking “how are you”. Maybe he was out of town? Ok, why couldn’t he call to let her know. Maybe he was deathly ill? Ok, why didn’t he call and say “I can’t talk, I’m deathly ill.” Maybe he was holed up in his house, fucking his ex. Fine, he could’ve called and said “I’m not interested in pursuing any kind of relationship with you anymore, please stop calling and emailing me.” He wouldn’t even need to bring up the part about the ex….

But this? This utter abandonment, utter cutoff of communication? She couldn’t fathom that anyone who even remotely cared about her, unless in a life-threatening coma, could not have found a way to communicate something, even if it wasn’t pleasant.

Oh yeah, and her ex, the only “love of her life” so far, had what her best friend referred to as a “beautiful, touching, emotional, perfect” wedding the day before to the girl he had lusted after when they were still living together. Sorry, but was she a complete bitch to think there was NEVER going to be anything beautiful or touching about something that started so seedily and with such origins of disrespect? It was doomed to fail, based on karma alone. Anyone should be able to see that, especially her best friend.

She didn’t know what to do. She had cleaned, straightened, done dishes, laundry, fantasized that Colin Farrell was her boyfriend – she’d even done her damn TAXES -- and nothing was making her feel any better, as the tension continued to grow. In her fevered mind, with each moment that passed and he didn’t call, the more palpable the tension became. With each day that he didn’t respond to her efforts to reach him, he was less likely to respond ever, based on what she assumed was his fear of her supposed wrath. And her thoughts on that were, well, JACKASS, if you know I’m angry, if you knew your behavior was going to make me angry, why the FUCK didn’t you call before it got to that point??

So here she was, furiously typing out her thoughts on the computer, feeling angry and helpless and annoyed and very very pissed off. She felt like a caricature of herself. She normally considered herself to be intuitive, kind, loving, blahblahblah. Now she just felt venomous and bloated, bleak and unhappy, fat and desperate. All of these things were jumbled up in her psyche and her body, swirling around into a blackness that made her feel nauseous and like crying uncontrollably. She was NOT going to retreat into the bathtub with wine again, she had spent more time in the bath this weekend than was probably healthy. And each bath cost about $10 in bath products alone, not counting the wine, making it a very expensive weekend indeed. And she STILL felt like shit.

It never ceased to amaze her how one hiccup in the spasm of life seemed to poison everything else. She didn’t even want her cat talking to or touching her. The rejected animal now lay prone before her, on top of the desk, but not making or attempting to make any kind of eye contact. Just the tip of her tail flicked every few minutes, to show she was paying attention and was available for affection should her master become affectionate. There she was, sprawled on the desk, trying to look appealing and pettable – only her flattened ears gave away her angst. The girl knew this strategy – she’d mastered it herself many nights curled up on the couch with him. Sending the message, “I’m cool with things the way they are, but should you find yourself overwhelmed with desire for my adorable self, I’m also cool with you having your way with me.”

She momentarily felt sorry for the furry creature, so she reached over and gave her a half-hearted rub – to which the cat immediately jumped up, started purring furiously, and began trying to manipulate the girl’s hand into petting her longer. How pathetic. Oh. My. God. What if that’s how she appeared to him, and what if he also found her pathetic in her utter transparency??? Was this some kind of sick BREAKTHROUGH?? NOW what to think? Her stomach hurt even more, and her head started to pound.

She kept absently petting the cat as this whole metaphor for life overtook her imagination. She pet the animal with increasing vigor as she became more intent on these thoughts – and the cat responded by purring louder and louder, until she choked and had to stop and swallow-- then continued purring again. Such utter unconditional devotion. And so undeserved, the girl thought, as she felt herself a shitty cat owner who didn’t spend nearly enough time loving on the animal. This is getting worse and worse, she thought. So, let’s follow it through; which cat did she enjoy petting the most? The one who was emotionally available, yet not always physically available for loving. The boy cat, that is. He would blink at her across the couch with lovey eyes, but would not let her pet him indiscriminately, lest it tarnish the thrill.

If it was a metaphor for life, or for love, then now she realized what she had always done wrong. She had given too much of herself. Loved more, given more, cared more, in almost every romantic relationship she had ever had. Because she was an honest person, and she didn’t even know how to be dishonest with her feelings. To her, to hold back would be to play a certain kind of game, and she had never been comfortable with that. So was this the problem, this tendency to give too much too soon? She thought about this deeply, lengthily, all the while stroking the cat, which had now settled down. The cat, when given the proper affection, was no longer needy and annoying. Hmmm.

So, there it was. But with one big flaw, she realized. Why was her ability and willingness to give of herself completely, and to be breathtakingly open, considered to be something she had been doing wrong? At least, from a man’s point of view? At least, from the men she had had in her life? Couldn’t this instead be a shortcoming of the other person in the relationship? She thought and thought, but she just couldn’t reconcile her honest behavior as being anything cloying or scary. Perhaps she had just not met the right man?

Who would, then, be the right kind of man, she wondered. Well, one who was emotionally strong. One who was comfortable with love, the idea of love, being loved, and loving. Someone as honest and open as she was, someone who was not afraid to make themself vulnerable. For to care was to be vulnerable, there was no other way to do it. Anytime you take any kind of risk, she realized, you’re making yourself vulnerable. And any time you hold yourself back from something because you are afraid, you are missing out on what could be a life-altering opportunity. You are losing something, some experience, good or bad, that could very well change your life and carry you further along the path you were meant to follow.

She sat up straight in her chair, still fiddling with the cat, which was now purring at a manageable pace and whose ears were no longer flattened in angst. The girl began to feel herself relax, also. She was not doing anything wrong in her relationships by being herself, open and honest. If she had a fault, it was trusting too easily, and again, was that really her fault, or the fault of the person who was untrustworthy? Because as many times as she had had her heart broken, she had always been willing to open herself up again, to very possibly be hurt again. And as this boy had once pointed out to her (in one of their long, meaningful conversations, pre-disappearance), most relationships were destined to have not only a beginning, but an end.

One night they had discussed how most relationships would not end in forever, but were not wasted opportunities, either. Each one, no matter where it led, taught you things you might use in your next relationship, things you might then teach to someone else. So it was not right to fear losing love. Perhaps you were not meant to have every love in your life forever – maybe that just wasn’t how it worked. He had pointed out that perhaps the point was to enjoy, to the fullest, each and every person who touched you in your life, for as long or as short as they were meant to touch you. Following this to its natural conclusion, then, one should not feel heartbroken, or broken at all, when such a relationship ends. One should take the lesson and the love and apply it to life’s next turn.

Maybe the reason her ex could get married now, four years after their relationship ended, was because of the things she had taught him during her time in his life. He was never meant to be hers; her purpose had been to prepare him for his future wife. And maybe his purpose had been to show her how love could be, not to necessarily be that love. She felt drained with this realization, but she no longer felt twisted inside.

This guy she liked right now was pretty smart – it was no wonder she liked him. Hopefully she would get to have him in her life a little bit longer, so she could relax and enjoy the moments, instead of hanging on so tight trying to see the unknowable future. Even if he never called her, even if she never heard from him again from this night on – she had already learned something very valuable from him.

And the cat purred softly as she slept, her tail twitching lazily in tune to her dreams.

Hell on earth

It is F-ing HOT outside. Record highs. 108 degrees at the END of SEPTEMBER. Come on, people!! It's one of the "Brrr" months (Sept, Oct, Dec), what the hell???

My sister tells me every week how they go hiking around in the cool mountains on the weekends. How they sleep with the windows open and there's no humidity. I can't help but think how AWESOME that would be. I actually like hiking; I just don't do it when it's hot. Which is about 11 months out of the year here. Which begs the question again – why am I still in Texas??? Seriously. Why? I just sort of ended up here, but I'm still young and have more life ahead of me than behind, so what's keeping me from picking my shit up and just going where my heart leads me? Plus, my hair looks GREAT in Colorado.

I will tell you why I have stayed in the past: My friends who I love dearly. But, we've all gotten busier with work or family as the years have passed and truthfully, but for a small handful, I rarely see them more than once a month or so. We can talk on the phone no matter where I live. Plus, we're all at the point where we can take weekend trips should the mood strike us. So that's no longer a valid excuse for me. Another reason: my nephews. Um, they moved away, like to my dream state. I haven't seen them since July. I've gone longer w/out seeing them when they lived in TX anyway, and I talk to my sister just as much as before. Again, not valid. My parents and brother? I'm sure they would come visit too -- especially if I moved to a hip state that everyone wants to visit ☺.

So I get excited when I think of uprooting. Excited about finding a new place to live, a new town to explore, a new climate. But then, I fear the aftermath, when it all sinks in. When the boxes are unpacked, when the home is decorated, when the snow becomes more of a burden than a thrill, and mostly, when the utter solitude hits me. I love solitude, don't get me wrong. I have entire weekends right here in Austin where I speak to no one and don't leave my house until Monday. But you see, the difference is that I **could** if I wanted to. At any time, I can call a friend and probably talk someone into meeting me somewhere. I choose my "alone" weekends. It frightens me to think about truly being alone, with no choice.

Yes, yes, I would make new friends, but it's not something you can just "do" at will. You have to meet the right people at the right time. What if I become a total sloth living out of state with no one checking on me or incenting me to vacuum every now and then? What if I go away and the same inertia I feel here overtakes me there? It's the old adage, "Wherever you go, there you are." I hate to be trite, but it's true.

In any event, I'm not going anywhere anytime soon. I need to get serious about selling my house, though. It's starting to weigh me down and make me feel trapped, more and more. I grow more resentful of my lawn with each passing day that has temps in the triple digits, turning my grass to straw. It seems senseless to water, when it will immediately evaporate anyway, no matter what time you do it. We're talking the 90s at NIGHT, people. But anyway, the first step is getting my house ready to sell, then I guess I'll go from there. I had been thinking about buying a condo next, but my original plan of moving into a rental for a while before buying is seeming like a good idea again – then I'm not tied to anything and I can live really close to work w/out paying the million dollar price tag for homes in the hills. Which I would if I could, in a heartbeat – but I can't. I kind of like the idea of living in a ritzy area where I could never afford to buy a house, with a fabulous, hill-country view, without the mortgage headache. Anyway.

Blahblahblah. That's where I am today. We'll see about tomorrow; it changes almost daily. I know what would help cheer me up, though: ice cream.

Better than ice cream

I am very fond of a certain ice cream…concoction. This delight is most excellent, a huge treat, and I look forward to it pretty much anytime I'm not partaking in it. But like anything divine, it is somewhat off limits and not something I can have all the time – as much as I may crave it. This sometimes makes me sad and even frustrated, but deep down I understand that if I could have it whenever I wanted, it wouldn't be nearly as sweet, now would it?

You can be sure, though, that when I do allow myself to partake? I enjoy it immensely. Every last drop. I lick the bowl and save the spoon. It is always worth the wait, and I am completely sated -- until next time. It isn't something that rules my thoughts, but it's nice to know that this treat is out there, whenever I want to look at it, look forward to it, indulge in it.

But not tonight. Instead, here I sit on my couch, a geriatric kitty staring and tap-tap-tapping on my arm, the TV muted so I can think and write about my current craving. It is the end of a long day of nothing for me. I have done very little but nap, watch TV, play on the computer, and think about ice cream. But I made it this far without caving, I'm in the home stretch. I just need to make it to bedtime and I'll be fine…until tomorrow.

This knowledge doesn't make it any easier to do without. And I'm quite sure my dreams tonight will be filled with tons of buttercream frosted, sugary sweets with lovely crunchy bits, tantalizing whipped cream, and lots – LOTS – of chocolate.

The age of innocence

As I compulsively click on CNN all day long to watch hurricane updates, I am reminded of something from my first semester at Texas A&M, back in '88 (gulp). One weekend that fall we were supposed to play Alabama (I think), which was a big game (I think), but there was a hurricane hitting that area and the game was cancelled. Which is a big deal in college football. In Texas. At Texas A&M. Anyway, so what did the students do instead? Why, they threw hurricane parties, of course!

The one I went to was with some of my Fish Camp friends. It was my first official "college party." My [older, wiser] roommate had gone home for the weekend, so I had the apartment all to myself. I went to this party and played drinking games and laughed with new friends, giddy with the possibilities spread out before me in this exciting new world. It was raining, but I don't remember any of us registering any fear or concern for the hurricane, wherever it was hitting. I have fond, although slightly vague, memories of this party, because I met a super-cute boy who liked me and we spontaneously made out in the backseat of a car stuffed with about six other people. Driving somewhere. Intoxicated (although I have no idea who was driving or whose car it was). Crammed in the back, I turned my head and there he was and we just casually made out for a few minutes. Then that was it. It was all very exciting, and I remember feeling wild and free and having it sink in just a little bit more that I was truly On My Own now and could Do as I Wished. His name was Kevin and he was H.O.T.

The notable part for me was how okay I was with just casually making out one night, then just being friendly after that and never even dating – and that was perfectly ok. This was a new way for me to feel, sans burning jealousy. I still had that when it came to my boyfriend back home, but this carefree attitude was new for me and I felt very empowered. Ahhh, youth…

Anyway, it was a hurricane party and I don't even remember the hurricane. And in light of what's been going on lately on the Gulf Coast, I kinda doubt there are any hurricane parties still going on these days. Maybe I'm wrong, but it just seems scarier and more real now than it did then – maybe because I'm all "grown up"? Sometimes I wish, though, that I could revert to that time of innocence and the naiveté I had back then. I felt so worldly and so free and believed the future was mine – I didn't know yet that the world is smaller than it seems, that no one is free once they become a slave to Uncle Sam, and that hurricanes are nothing to party about.

BUT.

I highly recommend kissing a strange boy every now and then.

Nephews ROCK

I had to push back my scheduled trip to see my nephews this weekend. It sucks, but I only had to push it two weeks, so it's not as sucky as it could be. But now I'm having all kinds of nephew dreams, in which I'm with them and I'm sad because I know I won't see them for a while. Whenever I talk to my sister, I make her tell me nephew stories. Poor thing, like she isn't sick of LIVING their antics, much less recounting them for her desperate and childless sistah ☺ But she does. And the whole time we're talking, I can hear Claytie's little scruffy voice trying to tell her things "real quick" – and "real quick" to a 3-year old is not that quick to adults. I think it's totally adorable, though. "Mama, there was a bug on the porch, and, um, it was behind the chair and I, um, I, I, stepped on it………and, and……Brother touched it!!!! But, but, I wouldn't touch it!!! and, and………" You get the idea. MUFFIN.

The story she told me last night was about a little girl Claytie has befriended from his pre-school class. My sis said she kept hearing him talk about what sounded like "snee-naw" this and "snee-naw" that, and finally one day as she picked him up from class she said "WHAT is a "snee-naw?" Just as the words left her lips, she heard the voice of another mom nearby saying something like "Hurry up, Sneenaw, get your bag…". Sure enough, there's a little Indian girl named Snee-naw and I'm not even going to guess at the correct spelling. But how cute is it that Claytie was actually saying it right and no one understood what he was talking about? Maybe it's only cute to me, hmmm. Anyway, my sis went on to tell me this little girl is a doll, and she has a really short, pixie, cutie-pie haircut. She said for the longest time, Claytie thought she was a boy because of her short hair – he would say "Mama, why does that boy have EARRINGS??" (which is a whole other issue, like what's he gonna say the next time he's in Austin to visit his liberal-hippie Aunt???) and she would say "Because, Claytie, she's a GIRL!" Well I guess it finally sank in, as Snee-naw is his new girlfriend. He told her they even hold hands! (go ahead, I'm going to – awwwwwww!)

As a co-worker of mine pointed out, if I were my sis, I'd be so relieved she didn't have to go into more detail about what the difference is between a little boy and little girl – besides earrings, you know.

Life is a left turn

When my dad taught me to drive back when I was 16, it was not an enjoyable experience for either one of us. My dad, a former flight instructor for the Army, would get quite frustrated at his insubordinate daughter, who didn't react quickly enough to his "orders". His daughter, in turn, would get incredibly stressed out and frustrated with said "orders". As they careened down the 20mph road with her at the wheel of the '63 beetle, he would begin chanting in a military monotone, "To the right. to the right. to the right. to the right. more. more. more. TO THE RIGHT." And I would move slightly to the right, but stop because for the Love of God, the curb was Right There and I was not very good at this, you know? I swear he wanted me to scrape the tires against the curb, and then I'd be "to the right" enough. Every single driving lesson ended with me dissolving into tears and him telling me gruffly to get back home. This is why it took me a year after my 16th birthday to finally get my driver's license, when all my friends had run out and taken the test the day of their birthday. Which, incidentally, made it possible for me to procrastinate a year -- everyone else could drive, why should I?

The other thing slowing me down, besides the frustrating driving lessons, was the stick shift in that bug car. In driver's ed, which I had already taken, we drove an automatic, of course. But nooooo, even though my Grandmother offered to let me take the driving test in her automatic car (ok, it was a huge cadillac and i probably would have failed in that car too), my dad said no, I couldn't take the test until I could drive the car I would actually be driving. Go figure. So about a year later, one night I had a dream where I was driving the bug car. With ease. I was flipping through the gears like a pro, and it felt good. The next day I got in that car and I. Could. Drive. Not quite as smoothly as in the dream, but I definitely had the gears down. With a little more practice I was licensed and ready to go. I even aced parallel parking, but that could be a whole separate entry. I know you can't wait.

I remember that the first place I drove by myself was my boyfriend's house. Which was a pretty straight shot from my house, except for one thing: the Big Hill with a Stop Sign at the top. Every new stick-shift driver's nightmare. I was very nervous about the first gear thing on the hill, but I figured it out and after that, I could go into first without killing it pretty much from then on. I've said it before, I'll say it again: I work well under pressure. So I was excited to take on my next conquest, which was driving to school.

But here's the catch -- my dad sat down and figured out this weird, twisty way to school, and spent a lot of time explaining and drawing me a little map and everything. It finally came out (after his insubordinate daughter questioned his orders yet again) that all this was so I would not have to make a left turn into the parking lot. That's right. I wasn't going to be allowed to make a left turn. We fought about this. Oh, how we fought. There were tears and door-slammings and the kind of drama only wreaked by a teenaged girl. But after much protest, my mom stepped in and overrode him, taking my side. My side was that eventually, I would have to make a left turn. I couldn't go through life taking the long way around to avoid the left turns. Life was not a series of simple right turns. I couldn't truly grasp the wisdom of my argument until almost 20 years later, even though it finally won my dad over.

I thought about all of this tonight, as I sat at a blinking yellow light waiting to make a left turn, AFTER DARK no less, into my neighborhood. I found myself noticing how interesting that my home ends up requiring a *dangerous* left turn every single day. And guess what? I've been doing it for five years and I've got it down pretty well, left turn and all. Now that I think about it, I've been braving the tricky turns since I was a teenager, and here I am. We all do it, every day. And imagine what the world would be like if we didn't? If everyone just kept it simple and took the long way around, avoiding any risk or danger?

What a mess that would be.

Procrastination

That is what I'm doing, right at this moment. I have absolutely nothing new to say since yesterday; the reason I'm trying to say something anyway is I am still at my place of business trying to finish a project before tomorrow, and I don't wanna. I wanna leave and go eat. And maybe have a tiny drink. And maybe nap on the couch, for the third night on the row, before it's time to go to bed. And maybe take a bubble bath with my new LUSH goodies, delivered fresh from S.F. via the gorgeous Sarah. All of those things sound awesome. But I can't leave until I do this project. So...i'm blogging. And chatting with Babs and Dipu about dinner.

ok, i can only procrastinate one way at a time, so.....later.

One of those list thingies...

First off, I cannot beLIEVE it has been almost a week since my last post. Time flies when you're in hell. Anyway.

I stole this from MissZoot because I am still deep in the midst of a stress storm and can't think of anything to say that is a) positive or b) not about work, which is off limits. So here ya go -- take it and run with it, if you want to:


10 years ago I was:
...married
...a technical writer
...going to SA every weekend to take care of my mom, who had cancer
...pre-therapy
...newly transplanted in Austin


5 years ago I was:
...unmarried
...a copywriter
...a new auntie
...quite a bit skinnier
...a new, and very proud, homeowner


1 year ago I was:
...still single
...at a brand new job and very happy about it
...just back from visiting Sarah in SF
...a three-time auntie
...just starting to talk to BT again

Yesterday I was:
...stressed out
...tired
...hungry, about this time
...undecided

5 snacks I enjoy the most:
1. Ben & Jerry's ice cream
2. Goldfish
3. cashews from AustinNuts (yes, it makes a difference)
4. anything chocolate
5. Little Debbie swiss rolls OR oatmeal cream pies

5 songs I know all the words to:
1. Ant Rap - Adam & the Ants
2. Come to Jesus - Mindy Smith
3. Ice Cream - Sarah McLachlan
4. Barely Breathing - Duncan Sheik
5. Never is a Promise - Fiona Apple

5 ideal places for running away to:
1. Paris
2. Victoria, BC (newly discovered)
3. my sister's house in CO
4. Spring Canyon
5. Verona, Italy

5 items you will never see me wear:
1. pantyhose
2. bikini
3. hat
4. tapered jeans/pants
5. capri pants (vs. cropped, which are fine)

5 biggest joys in life:
1. my nephews
2. shopping
3. traveling
4. my circle of friends
5. being alive

that is all.

Five reasons why my ex believed he was an alien abductee

It's true. Half jokingly or not, he was convinced ("ha ha") he had been secretly abducted by aliens. ahem. I am neither agreeing nor mocking, I am simply presenting his "evidence" because it is...amusing? interesting? thought provoking? Anyway, here goes:

1. He always seemed to look at a digital clock when it was exactly 11:11. (He read somewhere this was a "sign" you'd been abducted; but I'll be damned if I don't do it all the time ever since he pointed it out years ago...what does it MEAN???)
2. He would break out in a cold sweat during any movies/tv shows/books dealing with this topic -- although he also searched for them and watched/read them with horrid delight. He both relished and feared the spooky "deja vu" he would supposedly experience.
3. One day he showed me that he did, indeed, have odd little scabs behind each of his ears -- right where he had seen/read that alien abductees often had this "feature". Due to secret alien experiments. Or something.
4. He once took me hours out of our way on a road trip to show me the Marfa Lights. I have to admit they were weird. But cool. He had always been compelled to see them. (sigh) Honestly? I'd never even heard of them until he took me there.
5. He had always suffered from sleeping disorders like insomnia or restlessness or sleep "binges" where he could sleep for like 16 hours in a row.

And that, my friends, is why my ex believed he was an alien abductee. Which really would explain a lot, if true.....

I'm just sayin'.

Oh, and if there's a teeny tiny part of you wondering if you, too, are an abductee? Check out this helpful website and report back to us.

childish dreams breed grown-up nightmares

Last night I had a disturbingly vivid dream about my ex-husband. This is not unusual, unfortunately; I seem to have dreams about him when I’m stressed out. But I’m not stressed out right now, so it’s rather odd. And I hate it.

Anyway, the one last night made an impact because I had more clarity than I usually do while IN the dream. I dreamed, as usual, that he and I were back together. We were living in the same house together, and as usual, he was “into” the reunion more than I was (by “as usual”, I mean in the dreams, not in real life; I wouldn’t be surprised if he has nightmares about being married to me again, either…). Nothing significant happened, it was more just the feeling of guilt I had, and unease, knowing this wasn’t really what I wanted and how the HELL had this happened, by the way?? Last night, the issue was Christmas. I love it, he hated it. Rather, he loved getting presents, hated everything else about it (in fact, on our first Christmas as a married couple, he sat on the couch and pretended to read a hunting magazine while I tried to string our huge, “real” tree that I made him help me pick out, with lights. He pretended not to be watching as I struggled, and moved the stepstool all around the tree, and cursed, and got poked by pine needles, until the very end, when I realized I had strung the lights UPSIDE DOWN and the plug was at the TOP of the tree. At which point I started sobbing and he finally put down the magazine, said “Good LORD,” and fixed it for me. Happy happy memories of Christmas as a young, hopeful newlywed.). Ahem. Anyway. So in this dream I was decorating for Christmas and he was not helping, and all the while I was thinking “WHY am I DOING this?? I hate this about him, that he scorns all holidays… what am I DOING?”

Then I had an IN-DREAM epiphany, which is the unusual part for me. I realized that maybe this was what being in a long-term relationship was, giving up your “silly fantasies” about finding the “perfect” guy and just settling for someone who didn’t drive you completely mad (in which case, I had failed on both counts). Maybe in order to have stability, you had to give up excitement and joy. Then I woke up to a crushing depression. Don’t get me wrong, I was very glad to realize it was just a dream, but I was also very depressed to think that maybe what I “realized” in the dream was correct. That you can’t have it all. It’s either a crazy, sexy attraction with sparks and fireworks, or stability and longevity where you’ve squelched your “fantasies” of ever being truly happy. GAH! This can’t be true, can it??? And if it is, or rather if I really believe that? Then that explains why I’m still single, and why the thought of being married again is so unappealing at this point in my life.

I know that intoxicating “in love” feeling is fleeting, and addictive, and cannot stay the same forever. I know, intellectually, that settling into a comfy “love” can also be rewarding. But. I have never made it to that point. All my relationships, except maybe one, have been sparks and fireworks, then disappointment and anger. Then, over. I have no basis for comparison. The thought of “forever”, which is so comforting to some people, freaks my shit out. I cannot even IMAGINE being with the same person for longer than a few years. I have this innate fear that the moment I actually get comfortable and relax in a relationship, it will blow up in my face. I don’t really trust anything or anyone NOT to just disappear one day, with no explanation.

So now, today, post-bad-dream, I’m left wondering, am I defective? Am I being unreasonable? Have I set myself up for imminent failure? Do I sabotage relationships that might have long-term merit because I’d rather do that than let them dwindle to the mundane? (gosh, but the people that might have been long-term were so booorrriiinnngggg…..). Or am I drawn to meaningless, yet exciting, relationships because I can handle that and there’s no expectation to grow or change? (but there was a time when I wanted said meaningless, yet exciting, relationship to grow and change…it just never did…and I’m ok with that now…) But I don’t think I avoid meaningful relationships. I have to believe that I simply haven’t yet met the “right guy”. However, that goes back to the “perfect guy” myth, which I truly believe is a myth. AAACK!

That’s it, I’m going shopping.

Busted

Piper. Piper, Piper, Piper. My innocent, gimpy kitty. HA.

Yesterday, since I was home all afternoon, I left the back door open a crack so the kitties could frolic in the sun. My kitties are all indoor cats; they are only allowed in my fenced backyard when I’m home and within eye/ear sight. I have been fortunate in that none of them have ever tried to get out. Hey, I have one old kitty, one fat kitty, and one gimpy kitty – I believed this was a reasonable assumption. Besides, when I call them to come in, they all come running. Seriously. Like dogs. Sometimes I have to entice Jess to take that last step over the doorway by shaking the catnip jar in front of him, but that’s neither here nor there.

So I was watching TV/surfing/napping on my couch yesterday afternoon when a movement caught the corner of my eye. When I looked through the tall, skinny window by my front door, I saw the back end of a cat flash by. A back end that looked… suspiciously… familiar. As the bushy tail swooped by, I thought, PIPER. I opened the front door, calling her name, and rounded the corner to my driveway where she was frozen in horror, looking back at me, clearly trying to decide whether to keep running or just die right there on the spot. Honestly, even looking right at her, I wasn’t 100% it was my Piper at first – she looked THAT ruffled. I said her name again and asked her what was up, and she frantically ran towards me, past me, around the corner, then I heard her go up and over the fence back into my backyard. Hmmm. I came back inside to find her sitting in the kitchen, panting, frazzled, mortified. She. Was. Busted.

She was trying to act all cool, like “hey, what’s up? I’ve just been sitting here in the kitchen…” but she was really freaking out because she knew I had seen her. I had discovered her secret. Piper had been roaming the neighborhood for WHO KNOWS HOW LONG. How had I not seen it? Weren’t there times, now that I thought abut it, that I called her name out the back door and it took a little while for her to come running around the corner? The corner of the yard where I assumed she was sniffing dandelions, but where I now realized she was jumping the fence?? My illusions of safe kitties were utterly shattered. I was a bad mom. How did I not see the signs?? Oh, but you should have SEEN the look of guilt and distress on her little furry face. She acted weird around me for about an hour, then she shook it off and life went on as normal.

Except that now I know. And I’m not sure what to do. I didn’t let them outside today, because I couldn’t bear the thought of KNOWING she was out there, in the big scary world, roaming around by herself. They are inside cats for a reason; they’re not street smart at all, they don’t wear collars, and I thought that with her gimpy paw, Piper was defenseless. Hmm, might have to rethink that – I also thought she couldn’t jump the fence.

Addendum

I just found this article and it makes my stomach hurt:

http://www.msnbc.msn.com/Default.aspx?id=9174806&site=newsweek&uart=9&uarc=Rating

Sharing.

Good news from LA

Ok, we finally heard from my aunt and uncle from New Orleans. Here is an excerpt from my dad's email:

"On Wednesday John towed a boat into western New Orleans and volunteered to help save people. The authorities turned him away and told him to leave. Instead, he sneaked through back roads into their neighborhood, which is several miles south of the river, and drove to his home. Yes, he was armed. Their vicinity was not flooded at all and will not be. They have wind damage: the fence is gone, some siding, and part of the roof over one upstairs bedroom. That room is pretty well trashed, but the rest of the house not bad, considering. Their main problem now is the open roof hole, which probably cannot be fixed for some time. They had taken with them important documents, photos, and such. Had not been looted as of Wednesday.

No telling when John can get back to work; the tire business is flooded and probably looted, north of the river. [Cousin1] has a job in Thibodeax (sp?) and is already back to work. Paula's Wal-Mart is flooded and looted. On Monday, she will go back to work at a Wal-Mart in Morgan City, which is short of employees. Don't know [Cousin2's] status; I think she was in school & working. They are just thankful to be safe and not in the mess."

So that's a relief -- they were VERY fortunate. I am a little shocked that my uncle was turned away when he offered to help, but I imagine there were safety issues, etc. Just like my family to go ahead and sneak in anyway, and armed, at that...

I also heard from my friend Ann yesterday. She and her husband, two sons, and infant daughter had been pretty much stranded in their home in Chickasaw, AL (right outside Mobile) since Sunday, for various reasons, but the good news was they still HAD a home, with minimal damage, and they were finally on their way to her mother-in-law's home in Kentucky. Ann did say they'd been miserable and scared and had even run out of gas waiting in an insanely long line at a gas station -- just like what they're saying on the news.

Unbelievable. Just... unbelievable. But Thank God they're all safe.

On tragedy and numbness and a totally new and different type of anger

I haven't known what to say about what's going on with the hurricane. So many others have been saying so much, and all I've been able to do is watch, numbly, at the incredible footage of a city underwater. And let's not forget the smaller towns that are just ... gone. I've actually visited Gulfport and Biloxi several times, because one of my best friends lived there for years -- actually, she worked at the Beau Rivage, which I *think* might still be standing, although ravaged. So all the images of the flattened beaches, demolished casinos, the absence of the cute row of houses across the highway looking at the water, all of that makes me feel raw and sick and ... to use the word again ... numb.

I took a nap when I got home this evening. I have been complaining about the return of my Texas allergies, but have realized that I should just shut up and be grateful for everything that I have and everyone I know who is safe. So, I slept. And now I am awake, in that hyper-groggy, after a nap-that's-too-long state. Flipping around the channels, I am pummelled once more with the awful images and stories about the victims of this awful natural disaster. My own Aunt Paula and Uncle John and cousins are displaced from their home in N.O., although I know they evacuated on Sunday, so i'm trying not to freak out at the fact that we haven't yet heard from them.

Somehow I landed on the A&E channel, on a show about 9/11 -- why the towers fell, stories of survivors, the works. Now, what cable programming genius thought that *now* might be a great time to remind everyone, in case we have forgotten, of that terrible tragedy and everyone who died, and to bring back the horror in the pit of our stomachs at the waste, the loss, the devastation. Why, NOW is the perfect time, since we're eating up all the hurricane coverage. DAMN. Despite myself, and perhaps as planned by said programming genius, I found myself drawing similarities between the two events and the difference in the horror in the pit of my stomach. I remember the numbness I felt on 9/11 and the weeks following when it was still so fresh and sore, when it was still sinking in what had happened and how we as Americans would never again be able to fully bask in our false sense of security. The familiar feelings wash over me when I see images of post-apocalyptic N.O., and the displaced famillies with no food and water, and the frustrating rescue efforts, and all the news coverage, and I'm left wondering, now why is that journalist just standing there with a mike, next to two hungry, skinny babies, and *talking* about how much the conditions suck, and why isn't that journalist DOING SOMETHING since he's there and we aren't??? I'm marveling, along with the rest of the country, at how long it is taking the rescue efforts to get their shit together and HELP those people. I'm wondering why it is taking so long, when it seems everyone reacted faster and more effectively in the face of 9/11. But is that true, or have I simply forgotten the chaos from four years ago? Or, and I hesitate to even say this out loud, but i'm wondering if our country is, indeed, so numb at this point, after terrorists and tsunamis and war and destruction, that we simply aren't grasping this reality and are moving at a slower pace because we are paralyzed with helplessness. I don't know, but that thought really scares me. And if it's true? Our country is in more trouble than anyone even fathoms at this point. Because, people, although it is live on television, and we can watch it 24x7 from the comfort of our air-conditioned living rooms and in front of our flat-screen computer monitors, Dos Equis in hand, it is NOT just another episode of ER. This is REAL, there are no commercial breaks for the victims stuck on their roofs in the staggering heat, going on day 4 with no end in sight.

So about the only thing I feel I can personally do at this point is give money to the Red Cross, so I will do that and hope that it makes some kind of difference, however small. Please do the same if you are able. And let's collectively send good vibes to LA and MS and AL and FL and everyone else affected by Katrina, shall we? Go ahead, just do it.

Sorry for the silence...

...but my brain is still in post-vacation recovery (coma) even as my body rejects the polluted, hot, humid Texas air. My lungs, they keep shouting (groaning, actually), "wtf? this time last week we were in the purest air in the world. what are you tryin to do, kill us??" Well, dear lungs, yes, I suppose that inadvertently, that is exactly what I'm doing. There can be no other explanation for why I continue to live in this wretched, hotter-than-hell, humid and allergy-ridden state. Maybe it will make more sense when it begins to cool off -- in DECEMBER.

No, no bitterness at being back in the real world, none at all. Who told you that? They were clearly lying.

Really, i hope to do some productive and happy vacation blogging this weekend, if my sinuses don't explode in protest before that time. Here's something else to keep you hanging on:



That is where my heart still is. That is the peaceful view from the balcony in our room as we sailed back to Seattle on the last day...


[can you hear the tiny violin? i can...]

I wish I could live on vacation

...but then, who doesn't? I guess I'd forgotten how relaxed one can feel after getting away, fah, fah away, for 9 days. WHY have I waited more than 3 years for this??? You can bet I won't be waiting 3 years til the next trip! I know everyone is waiting with baited breath for my vacation blog, but I'm still way too depressed to be back to write anything awesome right now. Suffice it to say it rocked and I loved it and I can't wait to go again. Here are some highlights that Babs may or may not have covered in her top 10 list:

1. We are all still friends.
2. We all touched base yesterday, in fact, as we're suffering severe separation anxiety.
3. My real life needs to be revamped so I don't dread coming back so much.
4. Alaska is much more beautiful than I ever imagined.
5. I love the ocean now. (I know, I know)
6. Let me be more specific and say that I love the ocean where it is not hot. I am still not interested in sweating on beaches, no matter how clear the water. But ON the water? where it's cold? Love it.
7. I sleep a lot better with my friends than with my cats.
8. Beware the kitty scorned. Or left for a week with a petsitter. Just, beware.
9. My shower at my house is HUGE, and I never knew this before.
10. I can't think of one negative thing to say about the trip, and that, for those of you who know me, is amazing. NOT to say I'm a negative person; just that I am a worry wart. And my trip, once I got on the boat, was worry-free. NIRVANA, people.

Ok, much more later. I am working on organizing my photos, but I'll try to post a teaser now; behold a photo of one of the most beautiful places I've ever been in my life, Tracy Arm, Alaska:



More to come soon. Sit tight!

On facing your own mortality

This really isn't as grim as it sounds. I don't think. I've just been having deep thoughts about health and life and vacations and children and work and Italy lately. So naturally, this lead me to think about death. Have you ever thought about it? I mean, really thought about it? Beyond what you learned in church, or college, or whatever? Really now -- what must it feel like to just not "be" anymore?

I have thought a lot about this, myself. I thought the first time it hit me (no pun intended, I SWEAR) was upon impact in my car accident, and then the second time, a week later with the blood clots. You can probably see why from these photos i am finally posting.





Yeah. So anyway.

Upon deeper reflection, I realize I have thought about death and even felt the possibility of death many times before the accident. I have this thing with water, you see. It's a love/hate relationship. I can't officially swim. I do not like "Murky" water (oceans [yes i know], rivers, lakes] because I read too much damn Stephen King when I was a kid. However, I do enjoy floating around in clear water like bathtubs, swimming pools, and spas. And I have this weird thing where I like to hold my breath and put my head underwater and just veg out, completely relaxed. I think because of my fear of water as a child, I would do this just to challenge myself, to prove that I could. Is it just me, or is it incredibly peaceful under water, where you can hear nothing but the beat of your own heart? You are not weighed down by gravity. You just are. I have imagined what it would be like to drown. Like, would it be peaceful, or would it be awful, like that panicky feeling you get when you can't hold your breath any longer? My mom actually had a near drowning incident when she was a little girl, and she has said that once the panicky part goes away, rather quickly, you feel nothing and it's very peaceful -- until someone pulls you out.

So my accident. I was knocked out upon impact and do not have any memory of the actual crash or the pain or the airbags going off or the sound. Apparently your brain erases stuff like that and it's often hard to remember details around a trauma or accident. But I do remember the moment I woke up and how I felt. The blankness, the utter blankness. You don't remember anything, it's like you've been under anesthesia -- you just open your eyes and there you are. I imagine that's how death must be - you just open your eyes and you're somewhere else. And for some reason, that really comforted me, realizing that even if you were to die in a violent accident of some kind, your brain erases it and your lights literally just "go out" and there it is. It's over. Now, Why did this comfort me? I think because it made it less unknown. And I have always worried about the pain. Like, if your car falls off a cliff, like in the movies, and it explodes into a ball of flames on the mountainside, do you feel that? Is it fast or slow? I'm thinking that it's very fast. I think once you go into hyper-adrenaline panic mode you kind of blank out and then you either are or you aren't -- but you aren't aware of it happening. That's what I think. And that soothes me in some weird way.

So I was watching The 4400 tonight and there's some guy who was in a coma for three years and he was trying to describe it to his girlfriend. He told her to close her eyes. Then he said to open them, and imagine that three years had gone by. This really struck me, because I GET IT. (on the show she giggled coquettishly and said "I can't!" and he said "I can't either, I lost 3 years of my life" and blahblahblah they ended up sleeping together).

Deep thoughts on the eve of the eve of my trip out to the cold, cold sea amidst icebergs and whales and such. Did you happen to notice how linkalicious I am tonight? Did you? It's because I'm actually using my desktop, which is a PC (hiss) and so I have all these CRAZY features, like bold and italics and LINKS.

that is all. I am now going to go float in a hot bath for a while until I am too relaxed to do anything but fall instantly asleep when my head hits the pillow...

...then, in what will seem like mere moments later, a grey cat nose will wake me up by breathing into my ear, being sure to set its juiciness upon my inner ear canal for just a split second...just long enough to get catnip...

On stubbornness, whimsy, and tutus

I took ballet lessons as a little girl. I also took tap dancing (liked the clicking, not the dancing), acrobatics (loved it but sucked), girl scouts (stuck it out til middle school), piano (always), ceramics (liked, but not loved), soccer (one dreadful season), swimming lessons (didn't work), and on and on. I am very grateful to my mom for letting us experiment as children, trying things until we stumbled upon our callings. Mine, at the time, was piano, so that's what I did, all through high school, even competing in geeky piano competitions. But most memorable was my flirtation with ballet.

I think I was in kindergarten or maybe even younger. I was little. I liked dressing in the pretty costumes. I dug the pink shoes with ribbons, although I could never get them tied so they weren't too tight or too loose. I remember nothing at all about the dancing, which makes sense if you've ever seen me dance. I also remember, oh so vividly, my one ballet recital. If there was more than one, it doesn't matter -- THIS was the one that mattered. We were told the theme was animals/bugs. We were to choose which animal/bug we wanted to be, and I remember making sure it was REALLY our choice. After confirming this, I announced that I was going to be a dog house.

Yes, that's right.

A dog house.

Never mind that I've never had a dog in my whole entire life, but where the heck did that come from? No one knew, nor could anyone persuade me that a dog house didn't count as an animal. So a dog house I was. My mom and dad took a giant moving box (we moved every 4 years as a kid, so we had a lot of those around) and cut out arm holes and a head hole. My dad devised an elaborate cardboard "roof" over my head. Then we painted it white with a red roof. It might have even had green accents. So on the day of the recital, I proudly lumbered around the dance studio wearing a dog house, all the other little girls dressed as butterflies, bumblebees, lions, and other cutesy stuff. But. I was the ONLY one with a dog house. I rocked.

The only drawback was I had to take it off to actually "dance", but that didn't bother me a bit, I was wearing what I'm sure was a perfectly coordinated leotard underneath. I just pranced around until I could put my "costume" back on. I was the hit of the show. Laughing was good, wasn't it?

After the recital, we couldn't just let the magnificent dog house go to waste, now could we? So we did the logical thing -- my dad built a treehouse in the backyard with a wooden floor and -- you got it -- the doghouse exterior. I spent many a happy summer day huddled up in that cardboard box, sweat dripping down my body, squishing ants and avoiding locusts, learning about the pure joy of solitude. My sis and brother were too little to come up after me, so it was my perfect little hiding place.

The weather eventually broke down the cardboard, but the treehouse remained until the tree died years later. My love of solitude has never died.

Thank you mom and dad, for letting a spunky little girl have her way. That was way cool.

On nothingness

After an hour of preening (which is my top preen-time since I’ve hit my 30s), I spritzed on my foody-smelling body spray and headed to the airport to pick up BoyToy (BT). I was filled with trepidation, dread, and excitement. The usual emotions connected with BT. The unusual part – I’d had a couple of days to think about this, so I was buzzing with nervousness. I do much better with him when he calls and gives me an hour’s notice that he’s coming into town. No time to stress or to set any type of expectation that is sure to be shattered.

His flight was delayed so I drove slowly in circles for about 20 minutes. During which time he called me on my cell about 5 times, reporting that they had just landed, he was heading to baggage, then that his bag was lost, etc etc – then I almost drove right past him when he finally did come outside b/c I was not expecting him to be in a suit. Sheesh, I’ve never seen him in anything but soccer shorts and once or twice in jeans. In five years. So of COURSE I thought he worked at the airport when some man in a suit on a cell phone started waving me down in front of the terminal. It briefly flashed through my mind that perhaps they thought I was a terrorist since I’d driven by so many times without accomplishing anything. But no, it was BT, on the phone with the baggage people. Anticlimactic, but I expected that. It usually is.

Sitting next to him in the small space of my car was intoxicating, as always. I don’t know what it is with him. We have nothing major to say to one another, yet we have this magnet thing going on that we can’t seem to kick. Once I got okay with the knowledge that he is not and never will be my soulmate, things have been much smoother. Even his moving out of state hasn’t been too traumatic, since we only saw each other spottily anyway. Anyway. Now we have these sporadic visits. To look forward to, or not.

We went to his house and hung out for a while, then went to dinner, then I went home. Alone. He hugged me goodbye and thanked me for picking him up at the airport, said maybe we could get together again before he left town, blahblahblah, and that was the last I saw/heard from him. I’ll get another phone call in a month to 6 weeks and the cycle will crank up again. The point of my writing about this is that it FELT different this time. I was not overly excited to see him, although the chemistry is still there. I did not overly enjoy my time with him; he didn’t really make me laugh, and that’s usually a dealbreaker for me. It was all just very “eh”. Mediocre. Blah. All of it. Out of habit, I felt a crushing sadness as I drove away from his house and headed towards my own, but it went away after about 5 minutes. I have no more tears to cry for BT. I even told him this once, when we quarreled before he left for NM. That I had no drama left to give him. No more tears, no more emotion. Our staying in contact has been more of a comfortable habit than anything else. But again, this time it felt different.

I haven’t given him much thought at all since I saw him exactly a week ago. In fact, this time last week I was already back at home curled up in my bed watching CourtTV, letting the serial killer drama lull me to sleep. So all the preening? I guess that was more for me than for him, and it seems pretty pointless in retrospect. Am I leaving out part of the story? Well, of course I am – my whole life isn’t in this blog, only the parts I feel like sharing. But the thing I’m getting to tonight is that hmmm, I need to process the blah nothingness that I felt. I don’t even know if the chemistry was enough to make it worth ever seeing him again. I felt let down and even a little annoyed at the end of our evening. Ask me again in two weeks, it could all feel different. It’s important to note also that I’m primarily driven and controlled by my hormones, and they are particularly crazy this week, if you know what I mean. And no, I’m not blogging about that either. This time.

On splendor and glamour and chocolate (just for good measure)

I probably shouldn't post on Saturday nights, because it just advertises the fact that I'm home, on my couch, with my laptop, on a Saturday night. Ah well, it's the truth. And, it's also a choice. I **could** be out doing something glamorous in this glamorous town, but you know -- I saw a MOVIE last night and that was exciting enough. Tonight, it's Dr. Pepper and makeupalley.com. Plus, this time next weekend I will be on a giant boat and will have PLENTY of glamorous things to do, so I'm resting up. Ok?

Ok. I hate to do it again, but this is another post about the impending cruise. My friend Matt called me today to inform me that he had talked to the cruise people and they confirmed what he suspected -- that we **have** to "dress up" for dinner. Now I knew there were two "formal" nights, and had already resigned myself to just wearing various components of basic black, but EVERY NIGHT? And it gets even worse -- he asked them about eating the 24/7 buffet on the "Leto" deck and they said even THAT requires fancy clothes. Hell, the only way to avoid "dressing up" for dinner is to order room service. Which you bet your ass I will do at least once. Or twice.

Admittedly, I'm not currently in the spirit of the cruise. Supposedly, say former cruisers, once I get on the boat and into the whole luxurious splendor of it all, I will WANT to dress up and look nice etc etc. The problem is that I don't "dress up" in REAL life, so why would I want to do it on my VACATION?? When I think "vacation" I picture no makeup. A lot of sleeping and eating. No stress. Drinking, touring, but mostly, relaxing. So the notion of dragging ass back to the [teenytiny] room after a full day of touring a glacier or something equally grand, and then cleaning up and changing clothes for dinner, does NOT seem appealing right about now. I'm really worried about this. I'm sure it will be fine, I'm sure I'll get into the "spirit" of the cruise and will feel differently, but right now all I can think is I'm going to have to drag myself to the mall tomorrow, on a wretched weekend-day, to buy "nice" clothes. [Taking a time out to acknowledge the persistent use of quote-marks in this entry -- sorry about that, but if you were talking to me in person I'd be doing giant quotes in the air w/my hands, so I have to be true to myself].

People, I wear jeans to work every day. Every. Day. I break it up sometimes by wearing cropped pants in a different color, usually black. That's as dressy as it gets in Lisa's World. So anyway, just a small freak-out a week before the Alaskan Splendor that I'm sure I will adore and all my fears will be erased once I get on the boat and have a couple of $20 margaritas and relax. I should be very excited, I know. My friends who have cruised before are mega-excited and all giggly about it. This is one of the things I hate about myself: the inability to not stress out about the unknown. I would be giggly and excited if it were my 2nd time on a cruise and I'd enjoyed the first one, I'm just unsure at this point. But I trust that this time next week I will feel very differently. Yay!

On the eve of blessed Friday

I did a bad thing tonight. Again. I came home from work and slept on my couch for several blissful hours. This is bad because it totally mucks with my sleep pattern and evening overall -- yet I can't seem to help it this week. And speaking of this week? I cannot concentrate on ANYTHING. The reason my posts have been light and fluffy lately? Because that's what's in my BRAIN, people.

I think it's a combination of things; one being that this time next week I'll be in Seattle about to get on a giant boat for a week of Alaskan splendor. Heh. Also, this is the hottest, muggiest, most miserable month of the year to live in stupid Texas. This distracts me, makes me feel listless, prevents any inspiration on my part to do my hair or makeup. I mean, what's the point really, when it's so dang humid that when I step out of my car in the mornings, my glasses fog up??? My sistah, in Colorado, she is so lucky.

Thank goodness this week is almost over. Then I'll only have to suffer through four more days next week before my trip. Of which I am harboring much trepidation, along with excitement. Things I'm nervous about? The Unknown, of course. For example:
-Will I get seasick and throw up?
-Will my other two roommates get seasick and throw up?
-In our tiny, closet-sized room? That we're sharing??
-Will the ocean freak my shit out? Will I become obsessed with the dangerous creatures frolicking beneath the dark, dangerous, cold waters?
-Will we hit a glacier? I KNOW what can happen, i SAW the movie.
-Will I have the right clothes, or will I pack oh so carefully only to find I look all wrong and have NOTHING I like?
-Will I enjoy all the pre-planned excursions, or will I end up feeling stressed and tired and want to hide out somewhere where no one can find me?

and on and on. I know it will all be okay, I know after we board and spend about a day and i see that we're not going to sink or be deathly ill, I'll have a blast. But thanks to my genes (THANKS MOM) I will worry until that time. It sucks. The worrying, I mean.

BUT. I am very happy to have a trip to look forward to, and even if all those things I'm worrying over actually do happen (well, except for the glacier one) it will STILL be an adventure and beautiful and great. And -- perhaps most importantly -- MUCH cooler than Texas in August.

(AND. There is a LUSH [I'm on a Mac and it doesn't do links, in case you were wondering] store in Victoria, and I'm harboring a secret fantasy that I'll actually have the time and ability to FIND it and LUSH always soothes me. So that. It will rock.)

P.S. Last night at Target I bought an umbrella the size of my iPod. Kick ass.

I wonder where he gets it?

I got takeout Mexican food the other night and they included a couple of pralines. I love these illicit treats, except for the pecans; I spend way too much time trying to suck the sugary substance off the pecans w/out having to ingest them (for more on this, see my post yesterday). I have given much thought to how one might make pralines without the pecans. Would it even work? Would the goo hold together or harden without something on which to adhere? Would chocolate chips work just as well? Why has no one ever thought of this besides me? Or have they? And if so, where can I get some???

So. I carefully unwrapped my praline and began the methodical process of removing as many pecans as possible. Somewhere in the process a large grey cat appeared out of nowhere and began not-so-sneakily trying to steal away with my treat. Now, although large, this cat usually doesn’t eat people food. The exception? Pastry. Like pop-tart crusts? He’s ALL ABOUT the pop-tart crusts, which makes us a great team b/c I hate them and remove them immediately anyway. But we don’t have a problem in that case, because we have a system – he has access to my plate and he knows only to grab the crusts. It works for us. BUT in the case of the praline? This was a feline possessed.

He climbed all over me. He planted his kitty arms directly on my boobs and leaned all 20-something pounds of himself onto them, straining to reach the prize. I sat chewing, with the praline raised above my head. Never did his gaze waver from my hand, or from that which I clutched. I brought the praline down to take another bite and he actually snapped at it, managing to get a tiny piece of dried sugar goo, which he greedily inhaled and then quickly went after more. Clearly, this was unacceptable. I began with the stern “NO”s, which, if you have cats, you know how well this works. It was like his entire grey body and mind was focused on nothing but that praline and how he must have it. He chilled after a while, that is, he quit climbing me, and just sat in my lap, his body taut and poised to strike, eyes trained on my upraised arm. After a long while, long after my arm got tired, he finally gave up and jumped down. I waited 5 minutes and tried to unwrap the praline again – WRONG. He came bolting out from wherever he was and the whole thing started again.

Interestingly, I just read an article a few weeks ago that claimed that cats cannot taste sugar. That if they eat sugary things, it’s not because of the “sweetness”, it’s because some other ingredient turns them on. Um, I’m calling BULLSHIT on that theory, as there is nothing else in a praline BUT sugar (well, and pecans, and he doesn’t like those either). This cat, he would not rest until I gave him a microscopic crumb and made myself stuff the rest of it whole into my mouth, pecans and all. Needless to say, I got my yearly praline fix…

I wonder where Jess gets his single-minded food fixation? Hmmm. I wonder why he scorns meat and cheese, but strongly desires pastry, bread and sugar? Oh, and chocolate ice cream? Yeah, cats can’t taste sugar. Or else…….maybe this proves my theory that Jess is at least partly dog? I have yet to meet another cat (and I have known many) that comes when called; begs for treats; comes to get me when he wants to go outside or when the litter box is unacceptable; nuzzles me awake with his wet nose; growls at strangers in the yard or on the porch……………………… food for thought.
Make that PRALINE for thought.

Six facts about cookies

If I was in charge of all the cookies in the world, these things would NOT be included:
1 - nuts
2 - coconut
3 - raisins

and these things WOULD:
4 - chocolate
5 - caramel
6 - cream

that is all.

How my Monday has extended into Tuesday

I hate that this has happened. I hate being so mundane and ordinary as to say Mondays suck. But well, they do. Or at least yesterday did, and for some reason it seems to be bleeding into my Tuesday as well.

Yesterday. Running a bit late, nothing new. No drama. Until lunch, when I went out w/my friend Anita for the first time in over a week. And we got severely rear-ended by an SUV at a stoplight. That SUV hit her SUV, which then crashed into the SUV in front of us. (This happened in Westlake: the land of the Ladies who Lunch. Perhaps I will go into more detail on this someday…but if you live or work anywhere near this area in Austin, you already know what I mean). So anyway, it just so happens her front passenger seat belt wasn’t working, and the whole thing freaked me out waaayyy more than it should have. I was having mini flashbacks to my own accident and that horrible sound. That awful BOOM that occurs when bumper hits bumper, it took me back. But really, no one was hurt (a little sore maybe) and we made it back to work w/ out incident. The rest of the day was spent w/me nursing a mild headache, then going to a HH and accidentally getting tipsy. While I was getting ready for bed, somehow I locked Piper in my linen closet; I kept hearing this faint thudding; I would turn off the sink faucet and listen intently and it would stop. I’d turn the water back on and it would start. I was starting to get kind of creeped out when Jess sauntered into the bathroom and jumped four feet in the air as Piper snaked her arm out from under the door to bat at him. Scared the bejeezus(sp) out of both of us. Anyway. Mystery solved. Went to bed kind of early, woke up today with the same headache as yesterday. Good times.

Even though I was running late (again) this morning, I jumped in the shower to wake myself up. Hmm, how curious; my shampoo won’t lather this morning. Hmm, maybe I missed my head, perhaps I need more. Ok, I’ve now used two giant handfuls of my shampoo and my hair is NOT LATHERING. Ok, I’ll resort to my solid shampoo bar, the one I’m trying to preserve until our trip next week (NEXT WEEK!!). Finally, the lather I was looking for. Rest of the shower was uneventful until I reached for my conditioner and realized that I was using handfuls of my precious, expensive, LUSH conditioner earlier and that’s why there was no lather. Neither my hair nor the shampoo was defective. Just my brain. Now I only have a little bit left of that hard-to-obtain conditioner, dammit. Plus, as if I don’t have enough hair issues, putting gobs of conditioner into dirty hair and THEN washing it tends to bring out the weirdness in your hairstyle. Or lack thereof.

Stepped out of the shower and tripped on my grey cat who was not so patiently sitting there waiting to bug me for catnip. Stuck in traffic. Headache continues. So far, so good.

Sorry for this total bitchfest, but you know. It happens.

iThoughts

I'm currently reclining on my couch, laptop in my lap, TV on but muted, listening to the gentle wheeze/purr of a large, contented, grey cat. He has not been far from my side all day, as I've floated from bed, to couch, to floor, back to couch, and soon, back to bed. The time I spent on the floor I was organizing stacks and stacks of CDs. You see, for the past few weekends, I've spent Sunday afternoon lazily watching bad TV, yes, but also performing the arduous task of loading all my CDs into iTunes. Well, not "ALL"; I'm finding a few here and there that I just feel ridiculous to even own, so I'm setting them aside in a separate pile known as "if everything fits and there's still room". Then there's the pile of "yet to load", and the pile of "iTunes spits these out for some weird reason". As I'm loading them, I'm re-alphabetizing them in my CD rack. This hasn't been done properly since my sister started having babies 5 years ago and the babies started crawling around my house looking for things to destroy/eat at their eye level. But with the babies safely in CO, I can once again alphabetize to my anal-retentive heart's content.

I'd say I'm more than halfway done loading my CDs. I thought, when I began, that I would rediscover all these old CDs I'd forgotten about, that loading them onto the iPod would somehow bring them back to life. Turns out, I now no longer have any idea what's on my iPod. There's just so much, and I can't ever decide what I want to listen to, since I'm overwhelmed by the choice of having access, always, to almost every freaking CD I've bought since 1991. I spend a lot of time in the driveway staring blankly at my iPod screen, trying to comprehend how best to find something to suit my mood; should I search by artist? album? genre??? Forget it, I'm late -- I'll just listen to the radio. I was also under the misguided delusion that once I loaded the CDs into iTunes, I could them take bags and bags of old CDs to the used CD place and make a million dollars on resale value. This could still be possible, I suppose, except that I'm having a VERY difficult time getting rid of even the most silly CDs in my collection. Because, you never know -- what if my iBook dies the same day as my iPod and I lose ALL THE MUSIC OF THE PAST 15 YEARS????? I will most likely give in to my paranoia and end up storing them all in boxes, "just in case", and giving myself more crap to cart around when I move someday. But people, it's a collection -- how do you just abandon a collection?? You see, I am a Oualline by blood, and we Ouallines have trouble parting with unnecessary objects.

For example. Other collections I still have but no longer actively collect: cats. lots of little cat figurines, plates, lamps, everything. And fireflies. And blown-glass paperweights. And lizards. Ok, this does not mean I no longer like any of those things, it just means I no longer need 500 of them to feel complete. But -- I cannot get rid of them. I just can't. It's not in my genetic makeup. The only one of us who seems to have escaped this curse is my sistah. In her giant feat of rebellion, she gets rid of anything that isn't nailed down or currently in someone's hand. This chick has been known to sell belongings of others in her garage sales (ahem, stereo, cough). She won't admit it, but SURELY she's had a few "oops" moments from this behavior -- right??? Or is it just me that slowly and painfully cleans out my closet, lugging it all tearfully to Goodwill, only to need that green pair of flats I bought 8 years ago the very next week because they go PERFECT with something after all those years. Is it? Just me??

My brother collects broken or discarded computer parts, DVDs, Texas A&M stuff. My dad collects barware -- all kinds of crystal shot glasses, traveling bar paraphanalia, etc. Baseball caps. My mom? She collects...everything.

So back to my CDs. I really don't know what to do when they're all loaded up. Will I ever again stick a CD in a player? I mean, I have a converter in my car now, so I can use the iPod, and I'm quite sure my next car will have a built-in adapter. This digital music thing is here to stay. So will I just hold on to my CDs indefinitely, "just in case?" Well... now that I think about it, I still have a box of old cassettes somewhere....sigh.

it's a curse. a curse, i tell you. At least at this point in life, I recognize my obsessions and try to stick to things that are consumable -- like lotion or bubble bath, for example. By the gallon. And sugar scrubs. Oh, and body sprays ...shampoo...soap...chocolate. ice cream. chocolate ice cream. um, yeah.

TAG, I'm "it"

Babalicious tagged me to participate in this activity:

"List ten songs that you are currently digging ... it doesn't matter what genre they are from, whether they have words, or even if they're no good, but they must be songs you're really enjoying right now. Post these instructions, the artists, and the ten songs in your blog. Then tag five other people to see what they're listening to. "

Here goes:
1 - Tower of Strength - The Mission
2 - Twist of Fate - Olivia Newton-John
3 - Friend or Foe - Adam Ant
4 - Hurricane - Mindy Smith
5 - Back to Me - Kathleen Edwards
6 - Express Yourself - Madonna
7 - Blue Orchid - White Stripes
8 - Running Battle - Kasabian
9 - In the Waiting Line - Zero 7
10 - Cowboys and Angels - George Michael

And I TAG - wait. Not fair. Babs already tagged all my real-life blogging buddies...Hmm. I'll have to think about this. In the meantime, please don't judge me...

iTunes flashback

I lie in the pitch black of the basement on my twin bed, bordered by dozens of stuffed animals. My eyes are squeezed shut and I am listening intently to this song on my bulky tape recorder and its one tinny speaker, trying to imagine it is me singing – even going so far as to envision the stage, the people watching, what I’d be wearing... If only I could sing – but no, I can only play the stupid piano. Filled with pre-adolescent angst, I imagine I’m singing my heart out, making Ritchie Powers or Steve McDermott wish they were going with me. Or maybe it was Todd Gaines. I am filled with unidentified wishes and yearnings, and I channel all that energy into my fantasy of performing this song on my imaginary stage. Leg warmers and all.

“Make a Move on Me” – Olivia Newton-John, late 1970s